


Landmarks (Wonders Bright and Rivers Remix)

by sevenfists



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Originally Posted on LiveJournal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-10-11
Updated: 2006-10-11
Packaged: 2018-10-27 11:49:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10808448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sevenfists/pseuds/sevenfists
Summary: Dean wakes him that morning with a slap on the ass and the covers yanked right off the bed. "Rise and shine, Sammy!"





	Landmarks (Wonders Bright and Rivers Remix)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for spn_remix; I remixed "Landmarks" by estrella30.

Dean wakes him that morning with a slap on the ass and the covers yanked right off the bed. "Rise and shine, Sammy!"

"You're kidding me," Sam says. He rolls over, squints up at Dean.

"Nope," Dean says cheerfully. He's wearing an ancient pair of shorts and his running shoes. "Five miles before breakfast, let's go."

"It's 5:30," Sam says, but he gets up.

They go along the river and then up the hill past the cemetery—Miller Avenue, left on Spruce, follow 36 toward the railroad tracks. Dean keeps his pace slow and even, accommodating for Sam's leg. Dean's slowly building Sam back up to their customary eight miles, but Sam's busted hip and knee are still stiff and painful, slow to heal. It's been over a month.

It's getting easier, though. Sam runs to the left of Dean and a little behind, watching the easy swing of Dean's arms, the way his shoulders bunch and move, the waistband of his shorts darkening with sweat.

The sun rises as they angle back toward the motel. Sam squints into the glare. Mist rises off the road—it's early May, and the mornings are still cool and humid.

Sam stops outside their motel room, presses the palms of his hands against the stuccoed wall and stretches out his calves. Dean comes up behind him and rubs his face between Sam's shoulderblades, wiping his sweaty forehead on Sam's t-shirt.

"Thanks, Dean, my life was incomplete without your bodily excretions," Sam says.

"Yeah, 'cause you're fresh as a daisy," Dean says. He smacks Sam on the ass again for good measure.

"What is _with_ you?" Sam says.

"It's just so round and perky, I can't help myself," Dean says. "I get the first shower."

"I'm going to kill you," Sam mutters, but Dean's already gone inside.

They're in Indiana, summoned by a phone call from one of Dad's acquaintances. They go see her after breakfast. Her store's possessed by the spirit of an evil cat.

"You're kidding me," Dean says, staring slack-jawed at the woman.

She wrings her hands. "I wish I were," she says. "It's that darn Marian, I told her I wouldn't sell her the monkey's paw and she bound Mortimer's spirit to this place, I should have known better—"

"Hold on," Dean says. "An _evil cat_?"

Sam rolls his eyes. "How many times do you need to hear it, Dean?"

"It's fuckin' weird, okay?" Dean says in an undertone, voice pitched for Sam's ears only.

"We kill ghosts for a living."

"Yeah, shut up," Dean says.

The proprietor's looking at them with open interest. Sam clears his throat. "Sorry, um—"

"Beatrice," the woman says.

"Right, um. Cat possessions aren't really our specialty, but we'll see what we can do," Sam says.

"We will?" Dean asks.

" _Yes_ ," Sam says.

"Oh, thank you so much!" Beatrice says, beaming. "Anything you can do, I'll really appreciate it."

"We'll try our best," Sam says.

"An evil cat," Dean mutters as they walk out to the car.

Sam sighs. "Better this than an evil dead guy."

"At least we know how to deal with that! The fuck are we supposed to do with a cat possession!"

"Read some Latin at it," Sam says, and shrugs. "I don't know, Dean, we'll figure something out."

Dean snickers. "Well, you know—"

"No pussy jokes," Sam says firmly.

" _Fine_ ," Dean says.

Sam doesn't know much about cats. Worshipped by the Egyptians, useful for catching rats, bury their own shit. "You remember Tiger," he says suddenly, the memory rising like a fish from deep water—Tiger, the stray kitten Dean adopted that summer they were in South Dakota, stealing cat food from the grocery store and hiding it under the back porch.

"What about her," Dean says, pausing with his hand on the car door.

"Nothing," Sam says, shaken by it, the unreliability of his own synapses—that he could have forgotten about Dean's kitten, forgotten for _years_ , and then remembered again for no apparent reason, here in a parking lot in Indiana, a hot bruise throbbing right below his left ear from where Dean bit him the night before.

"That was a long time ago," Dean says.

"Yeah," Sam says. "I don't know why I'm thinking about it."

Dean snorts. "Cause you're a freak? Get in the car, I need a fuckin' breakfast burrito."

"Fatso," Sam says, and laughs when Dean swipes at him lazily.

They go to the library. Sam gets on Wikipedia to research cat mythology, but gets distracted and ends up reading about the merits of anagenetic versus cladogenetic speciation.

Dean wanders over with a stack of books tucked under one arm and squints at the laptop screen. "How's evolutionary theory gonna help us with an evil cat?"

"There are connections," Sam mumbles.

"Uh-huh," Dean says. He drops his books on the table with a dramatic thud. "You just leave the research to the master, Sammy."

Sam rolls his eyes and clicks to a page about the Turkana fossil record.

"So, hey," Dean says after a while. "You remember that place, with the crazy horse—"

"Tulsa," Sam says. "That was in Tulsa."

"Yeah, whatever," Dean says impatiently. "The point is, what if—"

"No," Sam says. "That turned out to just be a brain tumor, remember? This is something different."

"Oh yeah," Dean says. "Fuck."

Sam goes back to Wikipedia.

"All God's creatures great and small," Dean says after a while.

"Dude, what are you _reading_ ," Sam says, leaning over the table to grab at the book Dean's flipping through.

Dean jerks back, holding the book close against his chest. "No looking."

"Jesus, Dean," Sam says, exasperated.

"Seriously, man, exorcisms work because of religious doctrine, right? So maybe if we try an exorcism it'll work on this evil cat."

"Maybe," Sam says, only partly sure what Dean's talking about.

"Evil cat. What the fuck," Dean says.

"So you're thinking that since a cat is one of God's creatures, an exorcism will get rid of it."

"Sure, why not?" Dean asks, leaning his chair back on two legs, his knees pressing into the edge of the table.

"I dunno," Sam says, "do the same rules apply to animals? I mean, are you _sure_ that all good dogs go to heaven?"

Dean lets the chair fall back onto the floor with a loud crack and stares at Sam, mouth a thin line. "You've got issues," he says.

Sam gives in then. He puts his head down on the table and laughs so hard that a librarian has to come over and tell him to be quiet.

"You're cracked," Dean says, his mouth twitching with a reluctant smile.

It's noon. They leave the library and get lunch from Subway, eat their sandwiches sitting on the curb outside. Dean's elbow knocks against Sam's, rough and companionable.

"Gimme some napkins," Dean says.

"You're dripping everywhere."

"Yeah, that's why I want the goddamn napkins, Wonderbread." Dean says, leaning over Sam to grab some.

Sam shakes his head, fighting back a grin. "Did you just call me 'Wonderbread'? What the hell is that even supposed to _mean_?"

"I need more mayo," Dean says.

Beatrice is thrilled to see them when they show up at the Head Shop. Dean's got orange powder at one corner of his mouth from the Doritos he was eating. Sam has to quell the urge to reach out and wipe it away with his thumb.

"We think we might know how to get rid of the cat," he says instead.

"Oh, that's wonderful!" Beatrice exclaims, clapping her hands together. "Would you like to use the back room? I'll stay out of your way."

"The back room sounds fine," Sam says. He looks at Dean, who's poking skeptically at a voodoo doll. " _Dean_."

"Huh?" Dean says, turning around.

"Let's _go_."

"Jesus," Dean grumbles, but he follows Sam into the back of the store.

The exorcism doesn't work.

Dean frowns at the chalk symbols he's drawn on the floor. "What the—are you sure you read the right passage, Sammy, this isn't—"

"I read the right passage," Sam says.

"Well fuck," Dean says. He drops the salt canister on the floor. "Wait here."

"Dean, what—" Sam says, but Dean's already gone.

Sam wipes the chalk marks off the floor, does his best to sweep the salt into a pile.

Dean comes back with a dog—a corgi, a fat, happy corgi with a red collar around its neck.

"Dude," Sam says.

"Shut it," Dean says. He crouches down to let the dog off its leash. It waddles around the room on its stubby legs, sniffing at corners. It sits down in the middle of the floor and looks up at Dean, its tail thumping cheerily against the linoleum.

"Huh," Dean says. "Go get it! Find the cat, boy!"

The dog waddles around some more. Sam can't believe it. He honestly has _no_ idea what Dean thinks he's doing—Dean gets these ideas sometimes, totally wacked-out shit that hardly ever works, and Sam can't do anything but let Dean's stupidity run its course.

"If that dog shits in here, I'm not cleaning it up," he says.

Dean ignores him. He's watching the dog intently. The dog snuffles in one corner for a long time, and then it starts _barking_ , loud and about as ferocious as Sam thinks a corgi could possibly manage.

"What's it doing," Sam says.

"Just wait," Dean says. He's grinning now, bouncing on his heels with excitement—one of the habits Dad never managed to break him of.

The dog keeps barking, and next thing Sam knows there's a furious hissing noise from that corner, like a cat that's been grabbed by its tail and swung around. The dog barks louder, the hissing turns into a furious yowl, and then there's a moment when things seem to freeze and everything goes quiet.

"Well," Dean said. "Guess it worked." The dog waddles over to Dean, begging to be pet, and Dean snaps the leash back on its collar. "Might as well go Mrs. Huberson her dog back."

"Dude, I have no idea what the fuck you just did," Sam says.

Dean laughs and slaps Sam on the back. "You always were a dumbass, Sammy," he says, and heads out the door.

They drive out that afternoon, make it to Peoria before they stop for the night.

 

***

"Wake up!" Dean bellows.

Sam rolls over, groaning. "Dude, no. Not today. My knee hurts, just let me sleep a little longer—"

"Too bad!" Dean says. "Up and at 'em!"

They run through the outskirts of town, the grimy commercial district where they spent the night, and out into farmland—fields of corn and soy, the occasional cow here and there. Sam's knee _does_ hurt, but it loosens up as they keep going. He feels something in his hip pop and snap into place.

"I heard that," Dean pants.

"Shut up," Sam says.

Dean makes a detour into somebody's field, stops under a tree beside a little man-made pond. He bends over with his hands settled on his knees.

"Tired already?" Sam asks. He collapses onto the grass, spread-eagled, and stares up at the new leaves on the tree.

"Dude, that was six and a half miles, I mapped it out last night," Dean says.

"Well, you're carrying me back to the motel," Sam says.

"Naw, the motel's half a mile away, we doubled back," Dean says. He sits down next to Sam, touches Sam's bad knee, which feels a little hot and tender.

"Careful," Sam says.

"I got it," Dean says. He presses his fingers around Sam's kneecap, feeling the way the tendons are aligned. It hurts, but Sam holds still, lets Dean do what he wants. "Huh," Dean says. "Better than I thought."

"Good," Sam says. He's getting tired of hobbling around in the morning, his joints stiff from overnight immobility. He puts a hand on Dean's shoulder and sits up. Dean's skin is sticky with sweat. Sam trails his hand down Dean's back, hooks his fingers into the waistband of Dean's shorts.

"Don't," Dean says, shrugging him off.

"You gave me a blowjob in the shower last night," Sam says. He leans forward and kisses Dean's throat, right below the angle of his jaw.

"That's different," Dean says.

"It's not different at all," Sam says. "Just because you're scared of emotional intimacy—"

Dean laughs, reaches back and smacks at Sam blindly. "Shut the fuck up, Sammy, I know you don't believe any of that pop psychology bullshit."

"Okay, you got me," Sam says. "I concede." He sticks his tongue in Dean's ear, mostly just to see what Dean will do about it.

Dean shrieks like a girl and jerks his head away. "God! Jesus Christ! What the—"

"You big pussy," Sam says. He kisses the back of Dean's neck, using his teeth a little the way he knows Dean likes it. Dean wants to pretend that they aren't _doing anything_ , that they don't end up sharing a bed more nights than not, that they're only brothers to each other and not this other thing, this thing Sam can't find a name for but which he knows is quite possibly the most important thing he'll do with his life. He's content to let Dean tell himself whatever lies he needs to as long as it means Dean will keep slipping into Sam's bed at three in the morning, naked and warm.

"You ever wonder why we remember the things we do?" he asks, hooking his chin over Dean's shoulder.

"Hmmm?" Dean isn't paying attention—he's watching ducks paddling on the little pond, their ruffled butts bobbing up as they dive for minnows.

"I mean, how do our brains pick what they're going to remember and what they're going to forget? Why can I remember the name of the woman who babysat me when I was in kindergarten? Why can't you even remember the car's license plate number?"

"That's not true," Dean says. "I know what it is."

"Oh yeah? What is it."

"Uh," Dean says. "KAZ. Uh. Y2K?"

"You're an asshole," Sam says. He can _feel_ Dean smirking, the bastard. "Okay. That's it. You're buying me breakfast."

They drive through the rest of Illinois that day, and through Iowa, and on into Nebraska. Sam doesn't know where they're going—he doesn't think Dean knows, either; they're just driving, endless roads and cornfields. Sam doesn't mind. He feels—it's hard to say what he feels.

He must fall asleep at one point, because he wakes up when Dean pulls into the parking lot of the Pink Pelican Lodge and turns off the engine.

"Whereuzuh," Sam says. His face is stuck to the vinyl beneath the window.

"So, you got Sesame Street on the brain again?" Dean asks.

"What?"

"You were talking in your sleep. Whatever, never mind, let's get some food."

Dean buys a six-pack after dinner and they take it back to the motel. Sam feels stupid and slow with too much sleep. His brain's firing slowly. He toes off his shoes and flops down onto one of the beds, turns on the TV. Some show about models is on. He watches them prance up and down the catwalk, all long sleek legs and shadowed ribs.

Dean comes out of the bathroom, his face dripping. He lifts the hem of his t-shirt to wipe the water away. "Didn't think you were into supermodels, Sammy."

"It's just on," Sam says, and fumbles around on the bedspread for the remote.

"Leave it," Dean says. "I like this show." He joins Sam on the bed, leaning back against the headboard, and twists off the top of his longneck.

Sam snorts. "Somehow I'm not surprised."

"Shut up, models are hot," Dean says. "Not that I'd ever do one. Too fuckin' skinny. You need a girl with some meat on her bones, you know? Something you can grab on to. Shit, there was this one chick I met in—"

"You know what, I really don't need to know," Sam says.

Dean snickers. "What, you jealous? You got plenty to grab on to, Sammy, not to worry."

"I'm not jealous," Sam says. He takes Dean's beer out of his hand and sips at it. It's good—not as bitter as what Dean usually buys.

"Quit stealing my beer," Dean says, reaching over to grab the bottle back.

"There are five more," Sam says.

"Yeah," Dean says, "but this one's mine." He mouths at the rim of the bottle, eyes shadowed, and draws up one of his knees, rests his elbow on it.

That's all it takes: Sam can't breathe, the air in the room gone still and heavy. "Dean," he says.

Dean finishes off the beer and tosses the bottle onto the floor. When he kisses Sam, his mouth is full of the dark flavor of hops, and Sam chases the taste with his tongue.

"Dean," Sam murmurs. "We need to talk about this."

"No we don't," Dean says, his face hot against Sam's neck.

Dean comes and rolls out of bed almost in one motion. He won't sleep with Sam that night—he curls up in the other bed, wrapped tight in the comforter. Sam lies awake for a long time and listens to the air conditioner hum. It's been six years since he left for Stanford, more or less, and all the millions of seconds that have passed since then haven't been enough time for Dean to forgive him.

***

They go to the same diner for breakfast the next morning—Jill's Truck Stop & Cafe. Sam's eggs look like two eyeballs on his plate.

"Heh, your eggs look like titties," Dean says.

"Thanks for that observation," Sam says.

They drive west. Nebraska's flat, boring. Sam watches the rolling fields and the power lines and lets his mind go blank.

"The day I left," he says, between one two-stoplight town and another. The words surprise him. He didn't know he was planning to say anything—or at least, not so soon; or not now, not in the car while Dean's driving and there's nowhere for either of them to escape the implications of what Sam's saying. It isn't something they talk about.

"We aren't talking about this," Dean says, true to form.

"Yeah, we are," Sam says, suddenly insistent. He feels like this is his only chance—that if he doesn't force the issue now, Dean will let the things they don't say to each other pile up into an insurmountable obstacle, a burden both of them will carry for the rest of their lives. Sam remembers being sixteen and making out with Dean in the creek behind their rental house, toes frigid and buried in the loose sand, Dean's hand stopping carefully short of the waistband of Sam's water-logged swim trunks.

He says, "You remember that summer we were in Missouri, and we stayed—"

"No," Dean says shortly.

Sam slouches down in his seat, rests his head against the door. He looks out at the roadside fencing, the puffy clouds, the trees still mostly bare but covered with the first green leaves, so pale and waxy they hardly look real. He doesn't look at Dean. "I want things to be like that again," he says. "I don't, when did it change—"

But he knows the answer to that, of course, and regrets the words as soon as they leave his mouth.

Dean doesn't answer for a while. "You left," he says finally.

"Yeah," Sam says, "yeah, I did, but I _came back_ , Dean. I'm _here_." A flock of birds startle out of a tree and hover thick over the road for a moment before passing out of sight. Sam scratches his nose.

Dean reaches over and turns off the radio. The silence is thick like cotton in Sam's ears. Dean chews on his lip. "You remember the day you left?" he asks.

"What? I mean, sure—"

"You left on a Tuesday," Dean says quietly. "I had eggs and toast for breakfast. It was cold that morning, and I went to buy coffee and matches, and when I got back you were sitting in the living room with your suitcase."

"Dean," Sam says helplessly.

"The high was 67 degrees. It rained a little in the evening. I smoked six cigarettes."

"Dean," Sam says.

"Don't tell me I don't remember stuff," Dean says, still in that same calm voice. "I remember every goddamn thing about that day."

" _Dean_ ," Sam says. "I don't—I never said that, I just—"

"Yes you do," Dean says. "You're always bitching at me about how I can't remember the name of whatever fuckin' restaurant we ate breakfast at. That shit doesn't _matter_ , Sammy. I only—"

"You only remember the important stuff," Sam says.

"Yeah," Dean says. "Whatever." He rolls down his window. It's too cold for it, but the breeze clears out some of the tension they've built up, and the knot in Sam's belly loosens a little.

"It was important to you," Sam says cautiously. "When I. When I left."

Dean makes a harsh, cut-off noise, like he's trying to laugh but can't quite manage it. "You wanna do it again? Huh? Sam? Tomorrow's a Tuesday, you might as well set a _pattern_ , go for the fucking—"

"I'm not leaving," Sam says.

"Yeah, whatever," Dean says, bitter, disbelieving.

"I mean it," Sam says. " _Dean_. I'm not. I'm not leaving." He reaches out, not sure if it's the right thing to do, and rests his hand on Dean's thigh. Dean tenses up but doesn't knock his hand away. Sam's willing to count that as a victory.

" _Whatever_ ," Dean says again.

"It's for real this time. Okay? I'm not—I can't do that again. I can't—Dean—"

"Well shit, let's just settle down and raise some kids," Dean says, the corner of his mouth twitching.

Sam stares at him, horrified.

"I'm _kidding_ , you dickhead," Dean says, finally turning his head to look at Sam. He isn't smiling, but his eyes are clear, bottle-green in the sunlight, and Sam knows in that instant that he'll do anything, anything to make Dean keep looking at him that way.

"I'm not leaving," he says again, as if by saying the words often enough he can convince Dean to believe them. It might even work.

"Yeah, okay," Dean says. "We're stopping in the next town. I want some donuts."

"Okay," Sam says.

"Okay," Dean says, and he smiles then, wide-open and unwavering.  



End file.
